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PerspectivesStudies in Translation Theory and Practice

ISSN: 0907-676X (Print) 1747-6623 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmps20

Translation and editing: a study of editorialtreatment of nominalisations in draft translations

Mario Bisiada

To cite this article: Mario Bisiada (2018) Translation and editing: a study of editorialtreatment of nominalisations in draft translations, Perspectives, 26:1, 24-38, DOI:10.1080/0907676X.2017.1290121

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/0907676X.2017.1290121

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Translation and editing: a study of editorial treatment ofnominalisations in draft translationsMario Bisiada

Department of Translation and Language Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

ABSTRACTThough editing and revising are integral parts of translation, theireffects on the language of the final translated text have scarcelybeen studied. The phenomena we observe in translated text areusually attributed to ‘the translator’, even though the multitude ofagents involved in translation may also be responsible for them tovarious degrees. This paper defends the use of manuscripts incorpus-based Translation Studies by investigating differences innominalisation between unedited and edited translations. Using acorpus of manuscript and published German translations ofEnglish business articles, I investigate what may motivate editorsto replace a nominalisation in the translation manuscript by averb to match the English source text. For this purpose, I analysedifferences in the process types of the nominalised source textverbs and the structure and information density of the nominalgroup the nominalisation appears in. The findings show thateditors exert extensive and systematic influence on the translatedtext. Crucially, the analysis shows that, if we only consider thepublished version of a translation, we might consider sentences asliteral translations which in reality have undergone a considerableamount of shifts while passing through the stages of translation.

ARTICLE HISTORYReceived 11 August 2016Accepted 26 January 2017

KEYWORDSediting; corpus-basedTranslation Studies; appliedtranslation; professionaltranslation; translating style

1. Introduction

In the chapter entitled ‘Interim Solutions’, Toury (1995) criticised the method of compar-ing source and target text because it

entails an inherent weakness precisely as far as translation processes are concerned. As longas it is only pairs of target vs. source texts that are available for study, there is no way ofknowing how many different persons were actually involved in the establishment of a trans-lation playing how many different roles. Whatever the number, the common practice hasbeen to collapse all of them into one person and have that conjoined entity regarded as‘the translator’. (Toury, 1995, p. 183)

This criticism still holds true today. Translation revision and editing by others are part oftranslators’ daily lives (Mossop, 2007, 2001/2014), yet those activities have not attractedmuch empirical research. Hardly any study has thus analysed the linguistic changesmade by editors to translated manuscripts in the process of producing a translation.

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

CONTACT Mario Bisiada mario.bisiada@upf.edu Department of Translation and Language Sciences, UniversitatPompeu Fabra, C. Roc Boronat, 138, 08018 Barcelona, Spain

PERSPECTIVES, 2018VOL. 26, NO. 1, 24–38https://doi.org/10.1080/0907676X.2017.1290121

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Instead, we usually take for granted that the translations we use for our research really rep-resent the text that the translator produced, ignoring all the intervening agents that mayhave changed the text before its publication.

This paper analyses editorial action through a qualitative and quantitative study ofnominalisations in English–German translation. The aim is to find out what influenceseditors’ decisions to maintain or change translators’ nominalisations. To try and discoverpossible motivations for this, two phenomena will be investigated: the process type of thesource text verb (Section 4.2) and the information density of the translation (Section 4.3),operationalised by the depth of pre- and post-modification of the nominal group.

2. Manuscripts in corpus-based translation studies

Product-oriented research of translations often necessarily relies on published sources.Indeed, the use of corpora in translation studies derives its empirical strength largelyfrom the fact that it analyses what has been variously termed ‘actual translated texts-in-function’ (Holmes, 1988, p. 101), ‘real data’ (Baker, 1993, p. 237), ‘language as it is usedin the translation product’ (Olohan, 2004, p. 16) or ‘authentic data, as attested in texts’(Kenny, 2009, p. 59). Relying solely on published sources, however, renders us unableto consider changes made to the manuscript translations before publication.

Some research exists on the effects of editing in non-translated language. For instance,Manenti (2010) investigates the role of editors in shaping the reception of books. Purcell,Donovan, and Davidoff (1998) have analysed changes to the Annals of Internal Medicineseven articles during the editing and peer review process to study objective changes tocontent enhancing their acceptability as scientific articles. Sometimes, the extent of edi-torial influence on the text is obvious, even without access to manuscripts, as Eve’s(2016) analysis of the United States and UK editions of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlasshows.

Several studies in the field of second-language writing have also drawn on the analysisof manuscripts. Questioning how much published articles reflect the author’s voice, Bur-rough-Boenisch (2003) studies the actions, reactions and interactions of ‘pre-publicationreaders’ or ‘shapers’ such as reviewers, journal editors and copyeditors on research articleswritten by non-native speakers from draft to publication. She argues that the publishedtext is a ‘product of the publishing industry, as well as a product of, and for, a particulardiscourse community’ (Burrough-Boenisch, 2003, p. 224). She concludes that one shouldbe ‘wary of characterising non-native speaker written discourse on the basis of an analysisof published non-native speaker texts’ (Burrough-Boenisch, 2003, p. 239).

Similarly, Harvey (2003) studies ideology in the ‘bindings’ of three 1970s gay fictionaltexts translated from English to French, showing that different ideologies and understand-ings of the homosexual compete in those ‘bindings’. In his conclusion, he argues that ‘in-house editorial policies make it dangerous to assume that the translator as individual […]is singly responsible for textual outcomes even in the main body of the text’ (Harvey, 2003,p. 69). These insights hold true also for corpus-based translation studies, as we should bewary of characterising translated discourse on the basis of an analysis solely of publishedtranslated texts.

One of the first to suggest the analysis of translated documents at several stages in theirdevelopment was Hartmann (1981, p. 206). He suggested ‘multiphase comparisons’ and

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the analysis of ‘successive stages’ of ‘individual attempts’ at translations, analysing changesto a passage of the English translation of Erich Maria Remarque’s Im Westen nichts Neuesthrough its various stages from manuscript via proof to the pre-print stage (Hartmann,1980, p. 109, 1981, p. 206).

Somewhat later, in a seminal article proposing the use of corpora in translation studies,Baker (1993, p. 247) discussed the ‘question of the intermediate stages of translation, orhow the final product evolves over a period of time’. She argued that ‘access to thistype of text in electronic form can be used to explore the process of translation througha retrospective analysis of successive versions of the product’ (Baker, 1993, p. 247).

Such methodological analyses of the translation process are still used today to informresearch in literary translation (see Jansen & Wegener, 2013). Thus, Filippakopoulou(2008) discusses the use of translation drafts in translation criticism and Munday(2013) proposes the use of manuscripts to investigate decision-making in translation.He argues that ‘unpublished primary sources preceding and building to the [target text]itself’ are a ‘valuable window into the working practice of a translator’ (Munday, 2013,p. 126).

Sinner (2012) studies fictive dialogue in 26 romance novels published between 2003and 2009. His corpus includes English source texts and their German manuscript trans-lations, as well as the published translations (Sinner, 2012, p. 136). The analysis shows sig-nificant editorial changes to the translations with regard to terms of address and theexplicitness of language. Editorial guidelines are strictly enforced, to the extent thatstyle often seems more important than correctness: for instance, editors require thatnominal terms of address such as titles be maintained despite their unnatural appearancein the German text (Sinner, 2012, p. 126). Editors also intervene to eliminate swear wordsand sexual references, even though translators had already toned them down, so that thedialogue, ‘especially in sex scenes, is far from representing credible orality’ (Sinner, 2012,p. 133).

In what he calls a ‘phases of translation’ corpus, Utka (2004, p. 197) compiled ‘succes-sive written draft versions’ of EU documents translated from English to Lithuanian. Thestages of the text available to him are the ‘first translator’s draft’, the ‘second-edited draft’and the ‘final version’ (Utka, 2004, p. 198). Unfortunately, he does not discuss the peopleinvolved in the translation process, so we do not know whether the translators revised thetexts themselves or whether someone else did. As his paper is primarily a methodologicalone, findings are sparsely interpreted and restricted to the lexical level, at which the authorobserves that the revision stage introduces terminological consistency. Utka notes areduction of different expressions (‘types’) during the editing stage, from which hededuces a ‘normalisation of lexis’ (Utka, 2004, p. 207) in the course of the translationprocess. A few pages later, however, he also notes an increase in the variety of Lithuaniantranslations of according to due to intervention by the editors, contradicting his previousobservation (Utka, 2004, p. 218). A further drawback of this study is that the texts dis-cussed are EU documents, which are relatively ‘ephemeral’ (Mossop, 2001/2014,p. 136), written for rapid publication and designed for singular consultation by a smallset of readers, and thus not subject to detailed editing, as would be the case with a textdesigned for mass publication.

Kruger (2012, p. 383) investigates ‘the hidden mediating effect of editing on original,unmediated text production’ by analysing the treatment of three proposed universals of

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translation (normalisation, explicitation and simplification) in ‘mediated language’ (trans-lated text and edited text) and ‘unmediated language’ (unedited text). To study the threeuniversals of translation, she looks at a range of linguistic features for instance, lexicaldiversity and mean word length, to study simplification (for the full list, see Kruger,2012, p. 362). In the analysis, she draws on a 1.2 million-word corpus of ‘academic,instructional, popular and reportage’ texts, which consists of a translation subcorpus (con-taining texts translated from Afrikaans to English), an edited subcorpus and an uneditedsubcorpus of English (Kruger, 2012, pp. 359–360).

Kruger finds no evidence for a mediation effect shared by translated and edited text(Kruger, 2012, pp. 380–382), but instead notes that ‘editors introduce collocationalvariety’ whereas translators favour ‘explicit and standardised language’ (Kruger, 2012,p. 382). This supports Utka’s (2004, p. 218) findings on the Lithuanian translations ofaccording to, reported above. As for the proposed similarity between translated andedited text, Kruger concludes that editing ‘does not appear to involve explicitation andsimplification to the degree evident in translated language’ (Kruger, 2012, p. 382).

Similarly, in a study of editorial intervention in the Spanish translation of a Frenchnovel, Andújar Moreno (2016) finds that a range of changes can be attributed to theeditors’ attempts at increasing the readability of the text. Readability also plays a role inthe analysis of sentence splitting in translation, in which Bisiada (2016) argues againstthe notion that sentence splitting is a phenomenon that occurs only in particular trans-lation directions. He finds that sentence splitting is frequent in English–German trans-lation of business articles, and that it is not just translators that engage in it, but alsoeditors to a significant extent.

The studies discussed in this section show that it may be misleading to talk about fea-tures of ‘translated language’ while only considering published translations. Often, thephenomena we encounter may also be caused by other agents intervening in the translatedtext. Editorial intervention, then, is significant enough to warrant greater attention intranslation studies.

3. Studying editorial intervention through corpora

The object of analysis in this paper is the treatment of nominalisations by editors inEnglish–German business translation. The texts under analysis are articles publishedfrom 2006 to 2011 in the monthly American magazine Harvard Business Review. Theywere translated by the translation company Rheinschrift and then sent to the editors atthe Harvard Business Manager, where they were eventually published.

My analysis draws on a tripartite parallel corpus of 316,000 words ‘in which two ormore components are aligned and can thus be retrieved as […] triplets’ (Fantinuoli &Zanettin, 2015, p. 4). This allows for a comparative analysis of the translation manuscriptsand the published versions of those manuscripts. From this corpus, I selected all thesentences in which the source text contains a verb that the translator nominalised. Thiswas done by searching for the German nominalisation morphemes -ung and -ieren.This set of sentences was then manually inspected to filter out only those instances inwhich the editor either maintained the nominalisation or changed it by reverbalisingthe construction. The resulting dataset is a corpus of 11,000 words, a good basis for aqualitative and quantitative study.

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Deverbal nominalisations are a relevant phenomenon to study because they are themost frequent part-of-speech shift in translations from English to German (Alves,Pagano, Neumann, Steiner, & Hansen-Schirra, 2010, p. 116). This is due to the fact thatthe nominal style is considered to be preferred in German (Fabricius-Hansen, 1999,p. 203; Hansen-Schirra, Hansen, Wolfer, & Konieczny, 2009, p. 112; Krein-Kühle, 2003,p. 160). It is thus interesting to investigate to what extent translators and editors engagein nominalisation, because the guidelines for translators specifically request translatorsto avoid the nominal style. At the Harvard Business Manager, nominalisations areamong the things that editors pay attention to when working on the texts, according toBritta Domke, one of the magazine’s editors (personal communication, 31 March 2015):

Auch sprachlich arbeiten wir zum Teil noch stark an den Übersetzungen, je nach Qualitätund Engagement des jeweiligen Übersetzers. So zerhacken wir Bandwurmsätze in leichterverständliche Einzelteile, formulieren Substantivierungen und Passivkonstruktionen umund streichen überflüssige Hilfsverben.

[We also edit the language of the translations, at times significantly, dependingon the quality andeffort of each translator. Thus, we split convoluted sentences into more comprehensible pieces,reformulate nominalisations and passive constructions and remove superfluous auxiliary verbs.]

The editors at the Harvard Business Manager are not themselves translators, but have ajournalistic background. Nevertheless, they always refer to the source text whileworking on the translation (Britta Domke, personal communication, 31 March 2015):

Wenn wir mit der Redigatur eines übersetzten Textes beginnen, legen wir uns in der Regelden Originaltext aus der HBR daneben und vergleichen beides Satz für Satz, sowohl spra-chlich als auch inhaltlich.

[When we start editing the translated text, we usually place next to us the original text from theHBR and compare both texts sentence by sentence, with regard to both language and content.]

The decision to nominalise or verbalise a construction does not always represent a choice.Sometimes, language contrasts specify the use of nouns or verbs. For instance, in English,the verb phrases create value or add value are commonly used. Translators working intoGerman do not really have a verbal equivalent at their disposal. Instead, they tend to usethe noun Wertschöpfung (‘value creation’, ‘added value’). There are just two instances ofsuch a verbal form in the present corpus (see Example (1)). The DWDS, a German news-paper reference corpus, also shows just one instance of the lemma Wert schöpfen. If thephrase is used, it may well be a calque based on the English expression.

Example (1)So if there is some chance that a deal between a buyer and a seller can create extra value,

it’s better to negotiate than to hold an auction. (HBR 12/09, 101)

Wenn also die Möglichkeit besteht, dass einVerhandlungsabschluss zwischen einem Käuferund einem Verkäufer zu einer zusätzlichenWertschöpfung führt, sollten Verhandlungen stattVersteigerungen stattfinden. (manuscript)

Wenn also die Möglichkeit besteht, dass einGeschäftsabschluss zwischen einem Käufer undeinem Verkäufer im Fall von Verhandlungenzusätzlichen Wert schöpft, sollten Sieverhandeln, anstatt eine Auktion durchzuführen.(HBM 6/10, 74)

[If there is a possibility that the closing of adeal between a buyer and a seller will lead to an

[If there is a possibility that the closing of a dealbetween a buyer and a seller will create extra

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extra value creation, negotiations rather thanauctions should take place.]

value in the case of negotiations, you shouldnegotiate instead of conducting an auction.]

4. Analysis

4.1. Introduction

There are 541 instances of nominalisation by translators. Of those, 339 were retainedin the published document, but 202 were changed to verbs by the editors. In whatfollows, I will attempt to find possible linguistic motivations for the editors’ decisions.Two approaches will be used: the process type of the source text verb and modifi-cation of the nominalisation in the nominal group. The two hypotheses that are inves-tigated in this section are that a nominalised metaphorical expression is likely to beunpacked:

(1) according to the process type of the source text verb, as some process types are moreacceptable as nominalisations to the editor than others (Section 4.2);

(2) if the nominalisations in the manuscripts receive pre- or postmodification, as thisincreases the information density of the sentence (Section 4.3).

4.2. Process types

Processes are usually expressed as verbs, but may be metaphorically expressed as nouns indeverbal nominalisations (Heyvaert, 2003, p. 66). In the study of the editors’ decisions asto whether particular processes are acceptable in their nominalised form or whether theyare better expressed as verbs, we may draw on process types. Nominalisations are con-sidered metaphors of transitivity (Taverniers, 2003, p. 8). Within the system of transitivity,six process types are distinguished.

material‘processes of doing, usually concrete, tangible actions’ (Eggins, 2004, p. 215)

mentalprocesses describing ‘what we think or feel’, about cognition, affection and perception

(Eggins, 2004, p. 225)behavioural

processes about ‘physiological and psychological behaviour’, ‘action that has to beexperienced by a conscious being’ (Eggins, 2004, p. 233)verbal

‘processes of verbal action’ (Eggins, 2004, p. 235)existential

processes ‘positing that “there was/is something”’ (Eggins, 2004, p. 238)relational

processes ‘where things are stated to exist in relation to other things’ (Eggins, 2004,pp. 237–238)

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Studies of grammatical metaphor commonly make reference to these process types (see,e.g., Ravelli, 1988). Banks (2003, p. 137), in his diachronic analysis of the diachronic fre-quency of the use of nominalisations in scientific discourse, also investigates differences inthe likelihood with which certain process types are nominalised. In a study of transitivityin English and German, Teich (2003, p. 182) notes ‘no significant differences in the dis-tribution of process types’, and Hill-Madsen (2015, p. 205) draws on material and rela-tional clauses in his analysis of grammatical metaphor in intralingual translation ofpatient information leaflets.

For the interpretation, I have attributed each source text verb in the corpus to a processtype. Needless to say, this method of analysis is highly subjective, as it involves my ownanalysis of the different process types. The problem of repeatability in process type analysisis a topic of much controversy in current Systemic Functional Linguistics (see Zappavigna,Whitelaw, & O’Donnell, 2008), but to my knowledge no viable alternative has beenproposed.

I have, wherever possible, compared my analysis with the lists of verbs given in Banks(2003). The most common process types found in previous studies have been material andmental processes, of which Examples (2) and (3), respectively, are examples.

Example (2)Increasing brand equity is best seen as a means to an end, one way to build customer

equity. (HBR 1/10, 94)

Die Steigerung des Werts einer Marke wirdbestenfalls als eine Methode zur Erreichung deswichtigeren Ziels, der Steigerung des Wertsder Kunden, betrachtet. (manuscript)

Den Wert einer Marke zu erhöhen kann bestenfallsdazu dienen, ein wichtigeres Ziel zu erreichen:die Steigerung des Kundenwerts. (HBM 3/10,86)

[The increase of a brand’s value is best seen as amethod for the achievement of the moreimportant goal, the increase of the customer’svalue.]

[To augment the value of a brand can at best serveto achieve a more important goal: the increase ofcustomer value.]

Example (3)Managers’ day-to-day (and moment-to-moment) behaviors matter not just because

they directly facilitate or impede the work of the organization. (HBR 5/07, 72)

Das kurzfristige Verhalten von Managern ist nichtnur von entscheidender Bedeutung, weil essich direkt hinderlich oder förderlich auf dieArbeit des Unternehmens auswirkt.(manuscript)

Das kurzfristige Verhalten von Managern ist nichtnur von entscheidender Bedeutung, weil es sichdirekt hinderlich oder förderlich auf die Arbeitinnerhalb des Unternehmens auswirkt. (HBM 9/07, 48)

[Managers’ short-term behaviour is not only ofdecisive significance because it directly affectsimpedingly or supportively the work of theorganisation.]

[Managers’ short-term behaviour is not only ofdecisive significance because it directly affectsimpedingly or supportively the work within theorganisation.]

Table 1 lists the process types that verbs have been assigned to. In the case of material,mental and verbal processes, I only give a selection because all verbs would be too numer-ous to list.

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The majority (78.93%) of encountered processes are material (see Table 2), thus it is dif-ficult tomakemeaningful statements about theother process types.Whilematerial processesoccur roughly equally in retained and changed nominalisations, there is a statistically signifi-cant difference between the frequencies of mental processes, which occur more often wherenominalisations were retained than where editors intervened (χ2 = 6.51 [df = 2], p = 0.039).Due to the relatively small number of instances of mental process types, this finding shouldbe treated with care. Nevertheless, it maymean that the editors aremore likely tomaintain anominalisation if the source text verb is a mental process.

This may be owing to English–German typological contrasts or differences in commu-nicative norms. Firstly, where English authors often begin a sentence with a finite clausesuch as I think or we believe, it is more common in German to use a (non-finite) adverbialconstruction likeMeiner Meinung nach (‘In my opinion’) or Unserer Ansicht nach (‘In ourview’) (see Example (4); cf. also Baumgarten, 2008). Secondly, German has no verbalequivalent to the English verb to matter, so translators are often forced to nominalise,using, for instance, Auswirkungen/Bedeutung haben (‘to have an effect/meaning’) (seeExample 3 above).

Example (4)At Cummins, for example, Solso had to find a way to shift the culture from a ‘best-

efforts company,’ where people felt that it was good enough to be smart and work hardand do the best they could, to ‘believing that they actually had to deliver on their perform-ance commitments.’ (HBR 7/08, 50)

Table 1. List of verbs classed as behavioural, verbal, existential and mental.Material Mental Behavioural Verbal Exist. Relational

shape believe trust describe (2) exist (2) ownoperate matter support assert emerge have (5)tighten affect self-monitor suggest be tied topower matter determine say (2) constitutesolve think concentrate tell (3) lackspur concern focus calldrive hear become clear criticizeact decide exhale report (2)enter assess stay nameperform assume devote arguedeal conceive aim ask (2)fall short value intend rearticulateimplement acknowledge get off proclaimpursue consider respondexpand feel predict… … …

Table 2. Editors’ treatment of nominalisation analysed by process type.Nom. retained Nom. changed

Process type n % n %

material 268 79.06 159 78.71mental 47 13.86 18 8.91behavioural 5 1.47 8 3.96verbal 12 3.54 12 5.94existential 1 0.29 2 0.99relational 6 1.77 3 1.49

Total 339 100.0 202 100.0

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Tim Solso von Cummins beispielsweise mussteeinen Weg zur Änderung derUnternehmenskultur finden, weg von derursprünglichen ‘Best-Efforts-Mentalität’, bei deres nach Ansicht der Mitarbeiter genügte,intelligent zu sein, hart zu arbeiten und ihrBestes zu geben, und hin zu der ‘Überzeugung,dass sie ihre Leistungsziele auch tatsächlicherreichen müssen’. (manuscript)

Tim Solso von Cummins beispielsweise musste diegesamte Unternehmenskultur ändern – wegvon der ursprünglichen ‘Best-Efforts-Mentalität’,bei der es nach Ansicht der Mitarbeitergenügte, intelligent zu sein, hart zu arbeiten undihr Bestes zu geben, und hin zu der‘Überzeugung, dass sie ihre Leistungsziele auchtatsächlich erreichen müssen’. (HBM 8/08, 20)

[Tim Solso from Cummins, for instance, had to finda way to a shift in the company culture, awayfrom the original “best-efforts mentality”, inwhich, according to the view of staff, it wasenough to be intelligent, to work hard and givetheir best, and towards the “belief that theyactually had to reach their performancecommitments”.]

[Tim Solso from Cummins, for instance, had toshift the entire company culture—away fromthe original “best-efforts mentality”, in which,according to the view of staff, it was enough tobe intelligent, to work hard and give their best,and towards the “belief that they actually had toreach their performance commitments”.]

Another explanation for such an effect might be that mental processes usually establishan addressee-oriented author–reader relationship, indicating affection and perception(Eggins, 2004, p. 225). German professional discourse is usually ‘content-oriented’(Becher, House, & Kranich, 2009, p. 138; see also Hansen-Schirra et al., 2009, p. 110)so that language users may seek to establish more distance between author and reader.It is possible that editors and translators agree that the congruent, verbal forms of suchprocesses are too personal for a text of this register and therefore metaphorise them.

Consider once again Example (4). Consider the three source text verbs to shift, to feel and tobelieve, where to shift is a material process while the other two are mental processes. In themanuscript, they have all been nominalised, asÄnderung (‘shift’),Ansicht (‘view’) andÜberzeu-gung (‘conviction’), respectively. In the published version, the nominalisations of the mentalprocesses are retained, while the material process has been reverbalised to ändern (‘to shift’).

Overall, then, there is an indication that nominalisations with a base verb of mentalprocesses are less likely to be reverbalised. However, for material processes, by far thelargest group, no statistically significant difference has been recorded. Thus, processtype does not seem to have a significant effect overall on the editors’ decisions, butmore extensive research into this issue is necessary.

4.3. Nominal group structure

The second possible explanation that has been analysed relates to the structure of thenominal group of which the nominalisation is the head noun. According to that hypoth-esis, editors are more likely to reverbalise constructions if the nominalisation is part of anominal group with a certain complexity; that is, if the nominalisation is premodified orpostmodified by a certain number of attributes.

As noted above, German is considered to be more content-oriented than English, andHansen-Schirra et al. (2009, p. 117) argue that this orientation towards content is partlyachieved through a complex nominal group structure. In their study of the nominalgroup in English and German professional and newspaper discourse, Hansen-Schirra

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et al. (2009, p. 117) find that premodification is more common than postmodification inthe German texts, and is achieved mainly through adverbs, determiners and participlephrases. Postmodification, as an important indicator of nominal style (Fabricius-Hansen, 1999, p. 204), is considered a marker of professional discourse in German, butis also found in popularising texts such as newspapers (Hansen-Schirra et al., 2009,p. 115). Genitive attributes are especially typical of German (Hansen-Schirra et al.,2009, p. 117) and commonly used in professional discourse (Banionyte, 2007; Roelcke,1999, p. 81). Complex noun phrases have been shown to require more processing effort(Müller-Feldmeth et al., 2015, p. 251).

The corpus has been analysed with the Semantic Role Labeller (Björkelund, Hafdell, &Nugues, 2009; Björkelund, Bohnet, Hafdell, & Nugues, 2010) provided by the University ofStuttgart, and then manually corrected. I have analysed premodification and postmodifi-cation separately. Statistical significance is determined by the z-ratio test of significance ofthe difference between two independent proportions (see Hanneman, Kposowa, & Riddle,2013, p. 294).

The results for the premodifiers are shown in Table 3. The category ‘Article’ containscases in which a definite or an indefinite article precedes the head noun. The category‘Pronoun’ refers to cases in which attributive pronouns (indefinite, possessive, interroga-tive, demonstrative and relative) occur. Adjectives that occur along with articles or pro-nouns were counted as part of those groups. The group ‘Adjective’ thus only containsadjectives that occur without a determiner. Finally, the group ‘Adverb’ contains adverbs.

Overall, no statistically significant difference in premodification is found in the data.Both retained and changed nominalisations have premodification in around 75% ofcases, but the subcorpus of constructions in which the nominalisation was changed hasa higher number of attributive pronouns, which is highly statistically significant (p <0.01). This may mean that if editors encounter a nominalisation that is premodified bya pronoun, they are less likely to reverbalise it.

Table 3. Premodification of nominalised head nouns in retained (n = 339) and changed (n = 202)nominalisations.Premodifier Nom. retained Nom. changed z-ratio p-value

Article 206 (60.77%) 132 (65.7%) −1.064 0.287Pronoun 30 (8.85%) 6 (2.97%) 2.654 0.008Adjective 20 (5.90%) 10 (4.95%) 0.467 0.641Adverb 3 (0.89%) 2 (0.99%) – –

Total 259 (76.40%) 150 (74.26%) 0.562 0.574

Table 4. Postmodification of nominalised head nouns in retained (n = 339) and changed (n = 202)nominalisations.Postmodifier VNN VNV z-ratio p-value

Genitive attribute 132 (38.94%) 107 (52.97%) −3.179 0.002Postnominal modifier 52 (15.34%) 29 (14.36%) 0.310 0.757Phrasal genitive 29 (8.55%) 21 (10.40%) −0.715 0.475Clausal modifier 16 (4.72%) 14 (6.93%) −1.087 0.277

Total 229 (67.55%) 171 (84.65%) −4.383 0.001

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Premodification and postmodification seem to be equally common in this dataset, andthere is a notably low number of adverbs compared to the other means of premodification.Those observations stand in contrast to the results reported by Hansen-Schirra et al. (2009,p. 117) in their genre. Further research drawing on bigger corpora may produce genredifferences between business and newspaper articles.

The analysis of postmodifiers is shown in Table 4. The types of postmodifiers that werefound are genitive attributes, postnominal modifiers (which consist of prepositionalphrases and adverbs), phrasal genitives and clausal modifiers such as object, relativeand infinitive clauses. The changed nominalisations are postmodified in 85% of cases,while the constructions in which the nominalisation was retained are only postmodifiedin 68% of cases, a difference that is highly statistically significant (p < 0.01). More specifi-cally, changed nominalisations show a highly statistically significant difference (p < 0.01)in genitive attributes: half the constructions that editors reverbalised have a genitive post-modification, while only 39% of the retained nominalisations have one.

Thus, postmodification seems to be a factor that influences the editors’ decision ofwhether to reverbalise a construction or not. If a nominalised head noun is postmodifiedby a genitive attribute, according to the data analysed in the present corpus, editors aremore likely to turn it back into a verb. A corpus example for this phenomenon isshown in Example (5). The nominalisationsNutzung (‘use’) andWahrung (‘maintenance’)both have genitive attributes, and are converted back to verbs (in bold). The nominalisa-tion Expansion (‘expansion’), which has no genitive attribute but a prepositional one, iskept (in italics). The nominalisation of the adjective focused, Fokussierung, is notchanged, but the genitive attribute is removed (in italics).

Example (5)The beauty of the PWP model is that it offers the potential for using operational

strengths to expand into new areas while at the same time maintaining the operationalexcellence that comes from focused expertise. (HBR 9/09,90)

Die Attraktivität des PWP-Modells ist seinPotenzial bei der Nutzung betrieblicherStärken zur Expansion in neue Bereiche beigleichzeitiger Wahrung der hervorragendenbetrieblichen Leistung, die sich aus derFokussierung der einzelnen Einheiten ergibt.(manuscript)

Der Charme des PWP-Modells besteht darin, dasses die Möglichkeit bietet, betriebliche Stärkenzur Expansion in neue Bereiche zu nutzen undzugleich die Fähigkeit zu betrieblichenSpitzenleistungen zu wahren, die sich ausSpezialisierung und Arbeitsteilung ergibt. (HBM12/09, 78)

[The beauty of the PWP model is its potential forthe use of operational strengths for theexpansion into new areas with a concomitantmaintenance of the excellent operationalperformance that comes from the focussing ofindividual units.]

[The charm of the PWP model lies in the fact thatit offers the possibility to use operationalstrengths for the expansion into new areas andat the same time to maintain the aptitude foroperational excellence that comes fromspecialisation and division of labour.]

The explanation for this may have to do with comprehensibility. Postmodificationincreases information density and is generally assumed to make processing more difficult(Müller-Feldmeth et al., 2015, p. 251). It is possible that editors are conscious of the reputationof German preferring the nominal style and of the ‘clunkyness’ of that style; therefore, theymight be trying to avoid it and make the language more accessible through a verbal style.

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To investigate this further, we may measure information density by measuring thedepth of the genitive attributes. The genitive attribute depth is the number of wordsthat feature in a genitive attribute other than the head noun and a definite or indefinitearticle (see Müller-Feldmeth et al., 2015, p. 237). Thus, in Example (6), the genitive attri-bute ihrer übergeordneten Mission has a depth of 2, ihrer Branchenmitbewerber has a depthof 1 and des Unternehmens has a depth of 0.

Example (6)These leaders are clearly energized by delivering on their larger mission, by soundly

thrashing their competitors in the marketplace, and by directly connecting with thepeople in their firms. (HBR 7/08, 50)

Diese Führungskräfte waren eindeutig motiviert:durch die Verfolgung ihrer übergeordnetenMission, die klare Überflügelung ihrerBranchenmitbewerber und ihre Beziehung zuden Mitarbeitern des Unternehmens.(manuscript)

Diese Führungskräfte beziehen ihre Motivationdaraus, dass sie konsequent ihre höheren Zieleverfolgen, dass sie den Wettbewerbern dieRücklichter zeigen und dass sie engen Kontaktzu ihren Mitarbeitern pflegen. (HBM 8/08, 20)

[These leaders were clearly motivated: through thepursuit of their larger mission, the clear thrashingof their competitors and their connection to theemployees of the company.]

[These leaders obtain their motivation from thefact that they consequently follow theirhigher targets, that they show the taillights tocompetitors and that they maintain closecontact to their co-workers.]

Table 5 shows the percentages of each genitive attribute depth of the total number ofgenitive attributes. The genitive attributes given to the nominalised head nouns in thechanged nominalisations have fewer depth 0 attributes and more depth 2 and 3 attributes,which confirms our observation that genitive attributes cause the editors to dissolve thenominalised phrases they appear in.

In sum, the hypotheses that the structure and size of the nominal group may affecteditors’ decisions whether to retain a nominalisation or not has been confirmed. Premo-dification by pronouns seems to support a maintenance of the nominalisation, whereaspostmodification by a genitive attribute will likely cause the editors to reverbalise thenominalisation.

5. Conclusion

The aim of this study has been to investigate possible linguistic features that may influencethe editors’ decisions to reverbalise some nominalisations but not others. For this purpose, Ihave analysed the process types of the source text verbs and the nominal group structure ofthe manuscript translation. The analysis of process types has shown that nominalisations ofmental processes are more likely to be retained. That, however, can be explained by Germancommunicative conventions, so that process type cannot be said to affect editors’ decisions.

Table 5. Genitive attribute depths.Nominalisation Depth 0 Depth 1 Depth 2 Depth 3 Depth 4 Total

retained 50.0% 41.6% 6.1% 1.5% 0.8% 100%changed 44.9% 42.0% 9.4% 3.7% 0.0% 100%

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The analysis of nominal group structure has shown that the presence of pre- and post-modifiers do seem to have such an effect: nominalisations that are postmodified, especiallyby genitive attributes, seem more likely to be reverbalised, while premodification throughpronouns may ‘protect’ the nominalisation.

These findings have given support to the main argument of this paper: that editing canhave a significant effect on the language of translation. Changes effected by editors on thetranslated text have been shown to be extensive, systematic and linguistically motivated.Of the 541 instances that the translator nominalised, 202 were turned back into verbsby the editor. The study thus shows that claims about literal translation of verbal formsshould be made with care, as there is evidence that what appear to be literal translationsmay well have undergone two shifts in part of speech during the translation process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad as part of theproject ‘Evidentiality and epistemicity in texts of evaluative discourse genres. Contrastive analysisand translation’ (ModevigTrad), under Grant number FFI2014-57313-P.

Note on contributor

Mario Bisiada is lecturer at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona (Spain), where he is amember of the Discourse Studies Research Group. He is currently working on the project ‘Eviden-tiality and epistemicity in texts of evaluative discourse genres. Contrastive analysis and translation’.He received his PhD in Translation and Intercultural Studies from the University of Manchester(UK). His recent publications include articles on sentence splitting and readability in translation,contact-induced language change in translation and the influence of editors on linguistic featuresin translated language.

ORCID

Mario Bisiada http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3145-1512

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